“As a first-time pregnant lady living in crunchy Santa Monica,” she explained, “next to a raw food restaurant and a seemingly oxymoronic homeopathic pharmacy, hiring a so-called celebrity placenta processor seemed to make sense.”

She’s given new meaning to the phrase “eats like a bird” in a video she posted on her blog that depicts the vegan star feeding Bear Blu, her son born last May, much like a mother bird feeds her chicks.

“Too few homes, schools and day-care facilities are tested for radon. An even smaller number are mitigated when high radon levels are found. Although the technical knowledge exists to reduce radon risks, the United States has not yet achieved the level of voluntary action required to make a real impact on indoor radon exposure.”

“The doctors always come back with these blank looks on their faces, and then they start redefining what normal is,” Tracee said as we drove down Interstate 25, a ribbon of asphalt that runs close to where the Great Plains bump up against the Rockies. “And I always just sit there thinking, What are you talking about, normal? Who gets pubic hair in first grade?”

the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had petitioned the agency to change its regulations on use of the chemical, had not provided sufficient scientific evidence to change the current regulations

The latest data estimate that 1 in 88 American children has some form of autism spectrum disorder. That’s a 78% increase compared to a decade ago, according to the report.

Mark Roithmayr, president of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, says more children are being diagnosed with autism because of “better diagnosis, broader diagnosis, better awareness, and roughly 50% of ‘We don’t know.’”